Leaving off writing yesterday afternoon, I went below & had tea, [1:16] & enjoyed its refreshing influence. The night was fine & very clear. The darkness gathered & most of the people go down stairs & rest before dinner, which is at 7 o’clock, & a full muster sat at tables. During dinner, 7 to 8:15 the ship’s band discourses very beautiful music: piano, 2 violins & a cornet. The musical programme is on the back of the menu. It is very lively. The music room is over the dinning saloon. The side which forms part of a square (or overhead dome) over the saloon is formed of brattice work & the sound is very perceptible. In the dome are very fine tropical plants, which enhance the appearance. In fact a miniature palm house.[1] Dinner over, most make their way to the promenade, some to smoke, cards, music &c. &c.
I retired early to bed & had a very grand sleep & rest, & fresh to rise at [1:17] 7:30. This being Sunday, I’ve dressed as at home. This will remind me that it is the home Sunday. Breakfast at 9. A most lovely morning, the air delightfully mild. No overcoats, & chairs squatted all about the decks. We had C. of E.[2] service at 11, a full attendance. There are more than one clergyman on board, but I haven’t yet got the name of he who presided & preached. Very homely service, harmonium & good singing, & the sermon truly appropo [sic]: of the day & surroundings, Titus 3 & 4 “The Kindness & Love of God”. It was barely possible to understand we were on board a steamer & in the very center of the Bay of Biscay. I’ve been told since lunch that this is a record passage through the bay. It is really wonderful, the sun shining so bright & powerful. Altogether it feels like being on a lake in summer. If we [1:18] be permitted to speak as we find then my experience of the B. of Biscay is favourable to a degree, but the “sun” has always shone on me & I wonder if I am grateful enough. One thing I am sensitive to it & I trust that is a spirit of thankfulness.
Dinner[3] at 1 o’clock by ship’s time & my gold watch was ¼ to 2.[4] We have altered watches twice. I find the cheap one useful as anticipated for daily corrections[5] & I note the runs are daily published, Gravesend to Gibraltar:
Lat. N. Long. W. run
15th 49.36 4.18 324
16 44.34 8.38 352
I omitted to say after referring to service this forenoon, a collection was taken & an acknowledgement appears with the Captain’s thanks for 5:12.5[6] on behalf of sailors’ orphans[i].
The afternoon is very, very beautiful & as hourly we are approaching [1:19] the South’ard[7] we may hope to escape any really bad weather. We are due at Gib. on Tuesday. Many are yet to join at Brindisi. My cabin companion, a Mr. Chambers, did not board at Tilbury, so I expect he is railing it to Brindisi. I see also from the list of passengers (Willie, I expect, got one in London for you) the Earl of Ronaldshay, Zetland’s heir,[8] is a passenger. If now on board, I don’t know him. There are a few titled people but not distinguishable.
Now it is 4 p.m. ship time, 4:45 your time, & I’ve exhausted all I had stored for diary, so I am off to get a cup of Bohea.[9]
Home time 7:30, ship time 6:45. What a beautiful Sunday night, stars bright, with the north star immediately at our stern & the “Plough” in fine figure, recalling [1:20] to my mind the view of that constellation from our back at home. We have just passed Cape Finisterre[10] & now getting nearer the land & away down the Portugal Coast. Dinner has just been sounded, tho’ I confess I have little desire for any, but must put in appearance otherwise it is assumed you are upset. I have not needed my overcoat all day but just as I left the deck, 6:30, it was becoming too cold to stay outside.
[1] Palm House is an urban greenhouse in London’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. One of the functions of English greenhouses at the time was to display the exotic range of plants and flowers that flourished in the British Empire.
[2] Church of England
[3] Used here in the old sense, meaning the main meal of the day, in this case being the afternoon meal.
[4] Before the modern system of time zones was developed, local time was measured as local solar time. Railways in the mid-nineteenth century were the first to adopt a uniform standard time across greater distances for the purpose of scheduling trains, but it wasn’t until the 20th century that all time on Earth was measured in the form of time zones referring to some “standard offset” from Greenwich Mean Time.
[5] William used his gold watch to track time at West Hartlepool, and bought a cheap one to keep track of local time changes.
[6] 5 pounds, 12 shillings and 5 pence. See endnotes for more detail.
[7] Southward
[8] The title Earl of Ronaldshay is the courtesy title of the eldest son and heir of the Marquess of Zetland (Shetland). The Earl of Ronaldshay, Lawrence John Lumley Dundas was born in 1876 and was 22 years old in 1898. From 1898 he travelled extensively in the Far East and in 1900 was appointed as an assistant to Earl Curzon, viceroy of India.
[9] A word derived from the Wu-i hills in the Fuhkien province of China (‘B’ being substituted for ‘W’ or ‘V’), a kind of black tea or, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, tea generally.
[10] Cape NW Spain on coast of La Coruña province; westernmost point of Spanish mainland, at 9°18´ W
Endnote 3: Currency in Victorian England (http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/currency.html)
“In these days of decimalisation of currency, it is difficult to understand the currency used in Britain before that country ‘went decimal’ in 1971. The following chart may help to explain it. Money was divided into pounds (£) shillings (s. or /-) and pennies (d.). Thus, 4 pounds, eight shillings and fourpence would be written as £4/8/4d. or £4-8-4d.
| There were | ||
| 20 shillings in £1 – a shilling was often called ‘bob’, so ‘ten bob’ was 10/- | ||
| 12 pennies in1 shilling | ||
| 240 pennies in £1 | ||
| Pennies were broken down into other coins: | ||
| a farthing (a fourth- thing) was ¼ of a penny | ||
| a halfpenny (hay-p’ny) was ½ of a penny | ||
| three farthings was ¾ of a penny | ||
| Other coins of a value less than 1/- were | ||
| a half-groat (2d) | 6 x 2d = 1/- | |
| a threepenny bit (3d) made of silver | 4 x 3d. = 1/- | |
| a groat (4d) | 3 x 4d = 1/- | |
| sixpence (silver) – often called a ‘tanner’ | 2 x 6d = 1/- | |
| Coins of more than 1/- but less than £1 in value were | ||
| a two shilling piece (called a florin) | 10 x 2/- = £1 | |
| a half-crown ( 2/6d) | 8 x 2/6d = £1 | |
| a crown (5/-) | 4 x 5/- = £1 | |
| ten shillings (a half-sovereign) | 2 x 10/- = £1 | |
| a half-guinea (10/6d) | 2 x 10/6d = £1/1/- | |
| A £1 coin was called a Sovereign and was made of gold. A paper pound often was called a ‘quid’. | ||
| Coins of more than £1 were | ||
| a guinea (£1/1/-) | ||
| a £5 coin | ||